Youre On the Clock Allen Robinson

By Armando Marsal

As fantasy owners, we tend to place a lot of emphasis on the previous season statistics in our decision making process and sometimes a little too much, if you ask me. Yes, it is very important to look at last year’s numbers, but before deciding on whether or not to draft a player, make sure to dig deep into these numbers and see what truly went wrong or right. For instance, Allen Robinson went from scoring the 13th most fantasy points in 2015, to finishing outside of the top 50 in 2016.

This was a significant drop for Robinson as he scored nearly seven fewer fantasy points per game from one year to the next. What happened, you might be asking? Regression was inevitable after his superb sophomore season, but this was a bit more than was expected if you ask me. If you look at the numbers, the first two obvious things that pop out are that he finished with 517 fewer receiving yards and eight less touchdowns. If you notice on the chart below, in bold red are some of the things that stood out to me. His yards per game decreased significantly and he had four fewer 100+ yard games. In addition he saw a five percent drop in his catch percentage. Although, despite the catch percentage decreasing, he did drop fewer passes in 2016 than he did in 2015.

Another problem I noticed from Robinson was his inability to convert in the red zone. The chart below clearly displays some major percentage changes from 2015 to 2016, as he was 20 percent less efficient in the red zone last season. The targets were still there and if you look at the percentage of the time he was targeted in the red zone, we saw a nice increase, especially inside the 10, yet he scored half of the touchdowns.

If you look at all the numbers, Robinson is still a high volume receiver. After all, he finished seventh in targets amongst receivers last season and eighth the season before. Not to mention, he also saw an increase in red zone targets. We can essentially say that many of his struggles came from poor quarterback play as Blake Bortles averaged over one yard less per pass attempt last season than he did in the previous season, as well as, 32 fewer passing yards per game. In addition, he also had over a one percent increase in bad passes thrown.

Now that we have that information, let’s take a look at what that has done to his stock from one year to the next.

Robinson went from being drafted in the first round in 2015 fantasy drafts to currently being drafted in the late third or early fourth of this year’s drafts, and if you look at the chart below his stock appears to be on the decline since May 1st 2017.

So the question is not whether you are going to draft Robinson or not, but when? He is currently being taken as WR18 and 37th overall. Considering his results last season, this seems reasonable. That being said, we have seen what he is capable of doing with the same amount of volume he received last year, so I am willing to take him a round earlier than his current ADP, as he offers top 15 overall upside and top 10 at his position. I understand that the quarterback situation has not changed, which can be a cause for concern, but it is hard to believe that Bortles could be much worse. Aside from the poor quarterback play that led to a major decline in production, there was not much else that raises a red flag for Robinson.

Conclusion

Robinson left a sour taste in many fantasy owners’ mouths last season, but that has to be left in the past and our focus must be for this season. While there are risks when drafting Robinson, there is also a ton of upside. I think we saw his floor last season, so we should see a bounce back season. Taking a shot on him in the late second or early third makes a lot of sense to me and it is something I plan on doing in the majority of my fantasy drafts.